TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
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User ID: 373
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
3yr ago
If you're talking about social bullying, e.g. kids calling each other names, excluding each other, talking behind each others' backs, etc. then that's never gone away and never will.
If you're talking about physical bullying, e.g. kids punching each other, that certainly has gone away mostly but I'd say that's a good thing. A small amount can be neutral or maybe plausibly beneficial in some circumstances, but it's usually overwhelmingly a bad idea to try to teach kids through uncontrolled physical harm. There's a reason most parenting guides say "don't beat your kids". It really screws them up.
That said, I presume this is in regards to things like "safe spaces", cancel culture, "crybullies", etc. Those aren't the result of a lack of bullying, but rather they come from women gaining political power. Hanania has a good overview of this. Women prioritize maintaining social harmony (not hurting people's feelings) over factual accuracy more than men do, evidenced by women consistently scoring much higher in agreeableness than men. Additionally, some women resort to crying (or claiming "abuse", or whatever else) when their points are disproven in an attempt to win the argument anyways. This is the female equivalent of a man losing the argument and resorting to physical violence, but whereas society has had millennia to come up with ways to deal with renegade males' outbursts, it is wholly unprepared to deal with the female equivalent.
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
3yr ago
To offer a contrary opinion. We have seen what a Russian war of annihilation looks like in Chechnya. They leveled cities. It looked apocalyptic. Russia's most heavy-handed tactics in Ukraine hardly resemble this. I would assume, then, that they want the country and its people largely intact.
This point is flatly wrong. Bakhmut absolutely ended up looking like Grozny when all was said and done. Same with Mariupol. I'm sure it's happened in several other smaller towns as well.
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
3yr ago
"Important for the Executive, less so for the Legislative" is an interesting take. Congressmen do some more involved things like negotiating, going to classified committees, etc. If the thought is that their aides could do enough of that to create a reasonable facsimile, wouldn't that be true for the Executive as well?
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
3yr ago
McConell had a scary moment which looks like it could be the onset of dementia or Alzheimers. He froze up for a solid 30 seconds just staring aimlessly when a question was asked of him as to whether he would run for re-election in 2026. People have been saying similar things about Biden, although Biden has had the same verbal tics for his entire career so it'd be harder to know for certain. Dianne Feinstein only just recently announced her retirement despite being over 90 years old. Trump is hardly a spring chicken himself at 77 years old.
Some have advocated for age limits on politicians, as older people can have cognitive decline and are presumably out-of-touch compared to younger counterparts. How much of a real issue is this? How long can aides keep cognitive decline out of the spotlight for before it becomes too obvious to ignore?
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
3yr ago
The war will last for only a couple months if one side or another gets a decisive victory. If it's more evenly matched, it will extend for years.
There's pretty much zero chance that a conventional conflict over Taiwan lasts years. Maybe either a blockade or an insurgency could lass that long, but even those are unlikely. Taiwan is less than 6% of the size of Ukraine, while also being an island. Either a Chinese invasion gets stopped on the beaches, or it's pretty much game over. Taiwan's rugged terrain could plausibly let it fight for a few months, but little beyond that.
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
3yr ago
any kind of nuclear exchange just immediately ends the world, and Ukraine does not have the manpower or resources to take back the contested territories without mushroom clouds.
From a conventional perspective, Ukraine managing to sever the land bridge would put Crimea under risk. It's not particularly defensible terrain (Perekop is no Thermopylae) and the supply interdiction problems Russia would face would make the campaign like a scaled-up version of the Kherson offensive. Not a guaranteed victory for Ukraine of course, but the template for their victory would already be there.
The nuclear threat is vastly overplayed. For a good primer on escalation theory, this video is a good primer. Putin himself decreased the legitimacy of the nuclear deterrent when he annexed the 4 oblasts, effectively putting them on the same footing on Crimea, i.e. a normal battleground like any other, no special nuclear protections given. It created a very clear brightline between the 1991 borders and the rest of Russian land.
is unable to provide quality soldiers in enough numbers
This is more an issue of training and experience than raw bodies. Even assuming very pessimistic estimates of both Ukrainian casualties and population loss due to refugees (e.g. tripling estimates for both), it's clear they still have a lot of fight left in them.
Crimea is a vitally important base for Russia, and if they don't have control over that area someone could just go and bomb the gas transit pipelines
What? Pipelines are vulnerable basically everywhere. If Russia wanted to "protect" its pipes for their entire length then they'd need to annex half the EU. As far as I know, Crimea doesn't even host any major pipelines directly. And in any case Russia is pivoting towards Asian markets as a result of the conflict.
To the best of my knowledge, the reason they view it as an existential threat is that they think NATO missile interdiction systems would give US authorities the false belief that they'd be able to win a nuclear exchange.
There's nothing Ukraine in particular offers on this front that Romania, Poland, Baltics, Finland, etc. don't already offer.
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
3yr ago
Balkanization would be terrible, as it would almost certainly lead to foreign meddling and violence breaking out between states like it was a jumbo-sized Yugoslavia.
No reasonable person thinks this would be a good idea. It's shortsighted toxoplasma in its most extreme form.
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
3yr ago
Its not maximizing outgroup hatred. Its establishment hatred.
This is a distinction without a difference. Trump's base (and many others!) hates "the establishment"... because they think it's controlled by their outgroup.
Lots of Americans would support basically anyone to rule the US as long as the first thing they did was put DC to the sword and Harvard to the torch.
Agree on the "many Americans want to put DC to the torch", but that's simply because negative partisanship and media negativity bias creates a picture of a terrible amorphous political class that people love to rage against without concrete proposals for how to make it better.
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
3yr ago
I don't claim to know exactly how the war will end - there's all sorts of potential black swan events that could change how things play out. If I see a barn on fire, I don't know exactly how it will end either - maybe it'll collapse, maybe it will simply burn to ash, maybe some rain will put it out. But I don't have to know exactly how it will end to rule out any options that leave it standing perfectly unharmed.
What? Nobody has said that Ukraine will leave this conflict "unharmed", i.e. without a lot of pain and suffering, which is obvious because that's already happened and will continue happening.
On the other hand, if you're trying to make a point about the certainty of your conclusions then this analogy doesn't make sense to me.
the sheer number of Ukrainian casualties and war dead is too high a number for even more US weaponry to overcome
If the West opened the floodgates of weapons to Ukraine, Russia would almost certainly be toast in the medium term. Their only realistic options would be defeat or nuclear escalation. Modern conventional weapons are just spectacularly lethal, and the West's combined economic might completely dwarf that of Russia's.
Running out of manpower won't be a concern for either side for a long time yet. There might be concerns about manpower quality as they conscript more and more, but Ukraine and Russia are both far, far away from running out of people in a general sense.
Russia views this conflict as existential
They have every incentive to say this, since it's basically just akin to "we're really committed to the war". The conflict might be existential for Putin, but Ukraine doesn't have mass territorial ambitions on Russian land, so it's hard to see how this would be existential in any meaningful capacity. The most plausible way for it to become existential would be if a civil war happens as a result of defeat, but if that's the primary fear then Russia would be better served by withdrawing and focus on averting that instead.
I simply do not believe that Russia is willing to accept any kind of NATO-aligned regime on their doorstep
There are already several of these, and indeed Finland got added to that camp because of this war.
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
3yr ago
I mean, in the top post I said the following:
"Negative partisanship is the driving force in American politics more than anything else, and Trump's ability to make liberals seethe apparently earned him so much goodwill that Republicans will vote for him no matter how many elections he loses."
This gets at your point. I'd say it's basically a personality cult built around maximizing outgroup hatred.
Voting for Trump is the protest vote for those wanting to see the Uniparty burn.
He was this in 2016, but the landscape has shifted since then. It'd be great to have someone who's against the Uniparty with words on Twitter like Trump was... but also who'd follow through with actual policy actions.
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
3yr ago
A good read as always. Keep them coming!
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
3yr ago
"Neutral" was probably the wrong word. "Not right-wing" would be better. Really just anything established that's not on the same tier as Infowars or Breitbart. NYP is... alright I guess.
Almost all of this list is Hunter himself selling access. I don't like it, I wish it wouldn't happen, and Joe should probably kick Hunter to the curb over this stuff. But the access seems pretty limited (typically just a meeting), and Kushner was absolutely doing this sort of thing during Trump's tenure way more egregiously. Major policy decisions actually came from Kushner's doings. If you ever wondered why MAGAworld seemed weirdly obsessed with Israel to the point of exhausting lots of political capital on the topic, that was basically just Kushner.
The one area where this exceeds "just a meeting" would be if Joe got money from one of these deals, as that would skirt close to "bribery". There was the thing over "payments for the big guy" but I've never heard of much evidence supporting it, and it hasn't gone anywhere.
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
3yr ago
Do you have a link from a neutral source going over Joe Biden's connection?
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
3yr ago
Not only is the evidence quite good that Joe was involved
Do you have a link from a neutral source about that?
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
3yr ago
It's funny, a few months ago someone said that this election is a simple rock-paper-scissors of Trump > Desantis > Biden > Trump. We'll probably not get to test the Desantis > Biden part, but it certainly seems plausible.
I agree with the main sentiment of your post. I liked the anti-woke bent Trump brought but he was far too scatterbrained and ineffectual to get almost anything done. Now Republicans seem destined to sleepwalk into another defeat since Trump has developed a cult of personality around himself that means he'll be almost impossible to dislodge.
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
3yr ago
I haven't really kept up with the Hunter Biden stuff. My surface-level understanding is that Hunter himself has been involved in bad shit, but there's little proof it goes up to the president himself. I heard Hunter got a suspiciously good deal at first, but again this doesn't really implicate Joe.
The J6 stuff has just been glacial legal drama.
Not sure I get the analogy to Eurovision. The president absolutely does matter quite a lot in the US's system since he has a ton of power concentrated in his hands. Some of it is sapped by Congressional deadlock and much can be reversed by a successor, but it's still very important. The fact that Trump barely did anything lasting besides SCOTUS stuff is more of an indictment of him than it is of the institution.
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
3yr ago
Your 2008 examples are true, but by this point in 2012 and 2016 there had already been quite a bit of action. Bachmann had flamed out and Perry was ascendant by this point in the 2012 cycle, while Trump was already the frontrunner in 2016. Also, Obama never dipped below the mid to low 20's in 2008, whereas support for Desantis has dropped to as low as 10% in some polls, with all of that going to other candidates who also look unlikely to pose a serious threat to Trump.
The season isn't over yet of course, but the first few episodes have been really boring with few signs that things will get better.
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
3yr ago
What in the world are you talking about? We have a guy out on bail vs a guy at death's door, who's fending off credible corruption allegations. anything could happen. You talked 'tension' in 2020? This blows that out of the water
The accusations will basically be irrelevant until after the primaries are done at the very least. Moreover, after all the hype of the Mueller investigation and not one but two impeachments doing nothing but waste everyone's time, I don't view legal issues as imminently threatening. They probably are the most likely scenario for a curveball, but in any case watching the legal system slowly grind along at a glacial pace doesn't make for particularly entertaining viewing.
The "Biden is a zombie" meme is overhyped since he's always had a verbal tic that makes him seem befuddled, which Republicans like to claim is dementia when it's actually just a pre-existing condition.
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
3yr ago
As someone who likes watching US presidential elections as if they were a sport, this has been by far the most boring election season we've had since I started watching in 2008. Primary season plus the ensuing general election used to guarantee at least a year and a half of interesting coverage, with the primaries in particular being full of drama, ups-and-downs, and upsets.
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In 2008 we had Obama vs Hillary, a classic for the ages. The R side wasn't that bad either, with McCain's come-from-behind victory.
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In 2012 was the most volatile primary we've had, with the polling frontrunner changing no less than 11 times as Romney's weak lead was tested by Bachmann, Perry, Cain, Gingrich, and Santorum before they all imploded one after another.
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In 2016 was the rise of Trump, another classic for the ages. The frontrunner didn't actually change that much, but the sheer ridiculousness of Trump's unprecedented run made it hard to turn your eyes away. Hillary vs Sanders was also somewhat interesting, albeit far less so than Hillary vs Obama 8 years earlier.
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In 2020 things were somewhat less interesting with Biden's lead enduring for most of primary. But at least that lead felt tense, like the floor could drop out with a few missteps, which is indeed what happened when Biden lost Iowa and New Hampshire, although it became obvious that he would win after Super Tuesday. This election also featured the worst (best) presidential debate in US history when Biden faced off against Trump for the first time.
By comparison, what does this election season have? Biden is running as an incumbent with no credible challengers. That only leaves the Republican side, which isn't much better. Trump's lead is commanding, and that doesn't show any signs of changing. The most credible threat is DeSantis, but he's been far too timid at attacking Trump. The pitch he should be making is something like "Trump's ideas and energy were great, but he lacked the follow-through to enact lasting change and was easily distracting by people like Kushner". Alternatively, he could have done something like Hanania suggested and challenge Trump to a boxing match. Instead, he's barely attacked Trump at all, creating the bizarre situation where a man is running to be president but refuses to directly tell us why we should prefer him over the frontrunner. In the end, it might not have mattered in any case. Negative partisanship is the driving force in American politics more than anything else, and Trump's ability to make liberals seethe apparently earned him so much goodwill that Republicans will vote for him no matter how many elections he loses.
It seems like Trump isn't going to appear at the Republican debate, which will likely turn the thing into an irrelevant snooze fest. Christie will probably attack Trump and the other candidates will likely rush to his defense, which will only further solidify the current dynamics. At this point the most interesting thing that's happened is Ramaswamy's mini-surge to third place which really shows how boring this whole affair is. Him, Scott, and and maybe Haley are essentially just running to be vice president, while other candidates like Pence, Christie, and the rest are doing the old presidential-campaign-as-glorified-press-conference thing, or have too much of an ego to see they have no shot.
The only thing that could make the current race entertaining is if Biden or Trump randomly drop dead, or if Trump is convicted of sufficiently serious crimes. Those would certainly be shockers, but the ramifications are hard to forecast before they actually happen.
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
3yr ago
"Ukraine has zero chance of winning this war"
Anyone who thinks they can say with absolute 100% certainty which way this war will end isn't doing serious analysis. After Putin's thunder-run towards Kiev sputtered, the war has come down to the question of "who has the advantage in a drawn out conflict?" This is something that nobody has answered convincingly, despite claims of doing so from both sides. Russia has the benefits of a larger population and the political cohesion of a single dictatorship, while the West has a far larger economic base and Ukraine has motivation. Put another way, the outcome of this war will be almost totally decided by the West's political willingness to send equipment. The concern-trolling argument of "Western equipment does nothing but kill more Ukrainians as they faceplant against the invincible Russian Bear" was trotted out before Kharkov and Kherson as well, and it was just as silly then as it is today.
At this point, I personally judge the outcomes as something like the following:
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10% chance that Russia wins big and takes far more than what it currently occupies.
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40% chance that things stalemate with only minor additional changes to occupation lines (say, Russia gains or loses less than +/-50% of what it already controls), with an eventual Korea-style cease-fire.
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30% chance that Ukraine eventually cuts the land bridge, possibly leading to a "Russia gets to keep Crimea in exchange for leaving" style peace.
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20% chance that Ukraine wins big and retakes everything up to its 1991 borders.
Your bet seems like even-money to me, mostly because you list the breakaway republics in there as well. Crimea seems to hold a significant place in Russian thinking, so I wouldn't bet against you there. But Donetsk and Luhansk were never really essential to Russia other than as a way to leverage influence in Ukraine. I could see them being traded away for peace if Russia thought its hold on Crimea was seriously threatened and the land bridge had already been cut. Of course, Putin doesn't want to give away anything at the moment, so resolution is likely still more than a year away.
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
3yr ago
While the current counteroffensive is certainly very lackluster, it's silly to just extrapolate a straight line on the rate of progress and thereafter assume nothing will change.
Also, sliders is correct: Putin has not offered peace on the current lines. Any ceasefire would essentially necessitate Ukraine's unilateral surrender, which would mean giving up lots of territory they currently control.
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
3yr ago
Most of this article is just a biography of Musk. While it's somewhat interesting, I would have liked to hear more about how he's become embedded in the world of national security.
But because he wasn't willing to keep providing it for free, he's a pro putin shill and a traitor to the US, and the service should be nationalized
He had a really bad PR oopsie a while back where he was indeed parroting Putin's propaganda, and he basically called for Ukraine to unilaterally surrender and run "referenda" in areas that the Russians have been aggressively ethnically cleansing. He rightfully received pushback for that. The bit about him being a "traitor to the US" is just you bashing a strawman.
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
3yr ago
You get 2, and I'd recommend getting medium or heavy armor since the weapons are fairly mediocre compared to alternatives, while the armor can easily last until the end of the game.
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
3yr ago
Ah gotcha.
Eh, that's unfortuante.
This is silly. Ballot secrecy serves to stop a specific problem of coercion and bribery when voting, which were a big problem back in the Gilded Age but which are far less prevalent now. Ballot secrecy when voting by mail should be a concern to be addressed going forward, but you haven't provided any evidence it had a major impact on the 2020 election. This argument is like one from those right-wing blogs that assert (without evidence) that 30 million illegal immigrants vote and so we don't have real democracy.
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